Tracy's Baby Shower: 9/30/12

Where did we last leave off??

Oh yes!! I was making a prototype baby block for Tracy's baby shower. 

Well, it was definitely a success! You can read all about it on Tracy's blog (post one and post two) Here are some pictures of the big event:

White cake with a strawberry filling and Frosting inspired by Magnolia Bakery.

Food Table - Note, the theme for the shower was "Grown with Love" so the food had a earthy vibe/lots of fruits and vegetables. 

On the Menu: Quinoa Salad with Kale and Butternut Squash and Mixed Fruit Salad

Also on the Menu: Egg Salad Sandwiches and Veggie/Goat cheese/Pistachio Pesto Sandwiches (Which, not to toot my own horn, were pretty dang amazing)

Beverage station: Cucumber Water and an assortment of sparkling juices

The entryway (note the potted plants, which were the party favors)

Everyone making the baby blocks. They turned out really cute! 

Tracy opening up presents. 

Our house is pretty small (and, like I said, it was super hot and we have no AC) so part of the party moved outside. 

Me and Tracy

I also have to say that my mom was the biggest help ever! She came over a little early and helped me get some of the food ready and was always there to clear dishes and take out the trash as we went. She was so helpful and I appreciate her so much!!!

Project Baby Block

So, I mentioned in my most recent bumpwatch post that I am planning a baby shower for my friend Tracy. She was my running partner and moved to phoenix a year ago. She is due in december with her baby girl, Emma (which I love that name and there is a large chance that we name our daughter Emma too). 

I am hosting Tracy's San Diego Baby Shower next weekend. Instead of doing a lot of games, we decided to do craft. At my friend, Sydney's baby shower, (which I wasn't at but heard all about), they made baby blocks with scrapbook paper. Ever since I heard about it, I thought it was the cutest thing. It makes perfect nursery decorations! 

Tracy's nursery theme is going to be a mixture between "Its a Small World" and "Jungle." I found the perfect scrapbook paper while I was in Logan this past week, which looks like it might be more for a little boy, but is pretty gender neutral. I figured I could just add a little bit of pink and purple in there and it would be perfect!

So last night I started the project. It took forever to find 26 2" square wooden blocks. I had to drive out to Santee (not too far, only about 25 minutes away) to get an entire set of them!

I started by painting the blocks with acrylic paint. I had light pink, purple, yellow and green. 

That dried overnight (although it was actually dry within about 10 minutes), and so I decided to make a prototype block. 

I cut out my pieces of scrapbook paper, and then got white scrapbook stickers for the numbers and letters. Luckily, the scrapbook paper that I got had some little animals, banners and clouds to cover the other two sides. 

So I just put a Medium layer of modge podge down with a sponge-y paint brush, placed the scrapbook paper on top, and pressed it down. The other side of the paint brush really helped to stick the sides down. 

Then once that dried, I put another thin coat on the entire thing to seal it. I was pretty proud of myself because I didn't look up any tutorials or anything on pinterest. It turned out really cute!

September Trip to Logan, UT

Jeff and I went on a trip to visit his family from Sept 6-14. The break from work and the daily grind was very much appreciated!

We decided to split up our trip and leave on Thursday after work. We got all packed up and made it out the door in time to beat traffic all the way up the 15. We made it to Mesquite around 11pm and just collapsed in bed. The next morning, we got up around 5:30 and got on the road as soon as we were ready, which put us in Salt Lake just around lunch time. We went over to Ben's house in Sandy and ate lunch at Cafe Rio (a delicious Utah favorite). Then it was time for Ben to go to work and us to head back on the road. We finally made it up to Logan that afternoon. I was so tired for the whole day, I felt like a walking zombie and don't really remember what we did that day! haha!

In fact, the whole trip and the time frame of everything is a little fuzzy still in my mind. One night we celebrated Anna and Logan's birthdays. Sara made a wrestling cake out of pipe cleaner and tootsie rolls and little wrestling guys.  While we went shopping for materials to decorate with, Jeff worked on his car with his dad (see, there is evidence in his dirty hands):

Another day (Monday I think???) We went to the Brigham City Temple open house. It was so awesome to get to tour an LDS temple as an adult. I remember going with my mom and grandma to the San Diego Temple open house when I was in second grade. Unfortunately, I don't remember much about it, except that I had to wear booties and stand in line. There is a picture of me from that day and I'm standing in front of the temple, wearing a white turtleneck and a st. patrick's day shirt. Other than that, I have nothing. So lets just say that this time, I had a much greater appreciation of going on a tour of the temple. 

It was a beautiful temple, both inside and out. The details were very classy and not over the top or gaudy.  The furnishings were beautiful and the place just looked immaculate. Even though the temple isn't dedicated yet, I still had very strong feelings about the church while I was in there and felt the spirit with me through the entire tour. I don't know if it was the spirit, my surging hormones, or a little bit of both, but I definitely started to tear up a couple times, especially after we went into the celestial room and into the sealing rooms. 

After the tour, we got a little cookie and a bottle of water and we all decided to head across the street to the tabernacle. Not much to see inside there, as there was a meeting going on, but it did give us a great shot of the temple. 

Katie and Jack hanging out front of the tabernacle

Jeff, Katie and Brooke outside of the tabernacle

Me and Jeff

Ben and Brooke

Dave and Carole

Brooke, Ben, Jack, Dave, Katie, me and Jeff

Sammy, Anna, Jeffrey, Jennie and Josie

Sarah and Craig were also with us, but they didn't join us at the tabernacle. It would have been great to have a shot with everyone in it! That night we had a fiesta with guacamole, jicama, spicy carrots, carne asada and fajitas. It was a lot of fun! After dinner, a few of us played games like cranium and apples to apples. Jeff, Carole and I won cranium (probably because it is the only game that we have at our house besides Glee Karaoke and The Settlers of Cattan)! 

Another day, (the next day perhaps?) Brooke, Katie and I went hiking in Logan Canyon with baby Jack. 

All ready to go up the mountain!!

Poor little Jack got some kind of bug bite on his right ear the night/day before our hike, so it was swollen. We called it a "dopey ear" and you can really see it in this picture. He is so cute!

Little stud Jack Tippets

The leaves were beginning to change colors in the canyon and it was so beautiful! Here is a close up shot of some.  

We finally made it to the end of the hike: The Wind Caves. Pretty cool! So beautiful up there!

Another day, Katie, her sisters-in-law and I went to the parade of homes. This is where builders showcase their best work and have interior decorators come in and decorate the homes. It was a lot of fun! Almost like going and looking at models homes for the afternoon. 

I loved this Kitchen. First house we went to, very modern.

Had to get a picture of Carole's refrigerator (or the style she hopes to soon get!)

Another favorite house. These two pictures are just of one big great room with a living room, kitchen and dining room. The large windows had an amazing view of cache valley. 

Here are some videos of our favorite home. So cool! 

And the thing that kills me about the Parade of Homes, is that the most expensive house was a little over 400K. That is so amazing to me. The house we live in right now in San Diego would probably cost that much... 

Now, what was jeff doing while I was parading homes and hiking mountains? ...Golfing :-) 

He had a fun filled trip of working on cars and golfing, which is just perfect for him!

It was really sad to leave and come home, but we at least had two days off when we got home. Dave and Carole gave us a rocking chair, and Jennie helped me stock up on beauty supplies, so our car was extra full on the way back. We also brought some fresh apples from the Hibshman's back yard. They are pretty delicious too! 

All in all it was a great trip, and I had so many conversations with my sisters-in-law and had such great bonding time. I sometimes feel like the best parts of the trip can't be shown in pictures or describe, they come more in just sharing conversation with those you love!

Expecting the Unexpected

 On July 14, I started a private blog on wordpress to discuss getting pregnant, or my lack of getting pregnant. July was the year marker of when I went off birth control. When I started the blog, I was pretty down because I still wasn't pregnant. I was so frustrated and so obsessed with getting pregnant, that I just needed something to vent to, and a a place to get my thoughts out. We had only been trying to get pregnant for 9 months, which my doctor said was very normal, but it didn't feel normal to me.  So I started a private blog, for my eyes only, to cope with my own fears and frustrations of trying to get pregnant.

Luckily, I only wrote one post until I got my positive result on July 19.

I guess good things do come to those who wait. Even though it wasn't on my time schedule,  I couldn't be happier at this very moment. I decided to turn that blog into my "bump watch" where I blog every week about my pregnancy. I didn't really want to devote this blog to my pregnancy, and definitely didn't want to subject my Facebook friends to that...but I do want to document my journey for myself mostly, but anyone else who wants to read about it is more than welcome.

So if you are interested in staying up-to-date with my progress, you can check out my blog entitled "Bump Watch" at:   http://bumpwatch2013.blogspot.com

Anniversary and Birthday Update

The beginning of August is always a fun time for us. First we have our Anniversary on August 4th and then a couple days later we get to celebrate Jeff's birthday on August 8th! 

To start out, on our FIVE YEAR Anniversary, we had planned to go up to Santa Barbara, where we honeymooned. That got to be a little too stressful to plan, as all of the good places were over $400 a night or sold out. We looked at VRBO.com to try to book a beach house, but most of the ones we were interested in were also booked that weekend. So without any plans, we decided at the last minute we would just spend the whole day together and stay local. 

Since we are early birds, we woke up at our usual 6:30 on the weekends. We got ready and headed over to the Zoo. We were there about 45 minutes before the Zoo opened, so we walked over to Balboa Park and took a little stroll around. We walked over to the Japanese Friendship Garden where we got married and saw all the progress they are making on their expansion...which is looking REALLY GOOD!  We also got to listen to someone practicing the organ at the Organ Pavillion next door. They were playing Phantom of the Opera, which was really cool...except they kept stumbling and having to stop. But it was still fun to hear! 

Finally the zoo opened. We renewed our annual pass so we could go any time we want to. It was the perfect time to go to the zoo, because there weren't that many people there. It was like we had the zoo all to ourselves. 

We saw this giant peacock just walking around the parking lot when we got out of our car. That was pretty cool!

This was the first animal we saw. A big ol' black bear!

All of the large cats were very active, which was also really neat. They are fun to watch. Some of them just pace the entire cage. 

Mountain Lion

Elephants

Luckily the lion was sleeping and we didn't have to heed this sign's warning!

Ridding "The Buckets" over the zoo back to the entrance. 

After our morning at the zoo, we were starving. Going to the zoo is a great work out because it has so many hills! So we decided to try our luck down in Old Town. Surprisingly it wasn't too crowded down there either. We went to Cafe Coyote and had breakfast foods for lunch. It was really good! 

Jeff had been wanting to get me some bling for our anniversary, so we went across the street to The Diamond Source...just to browse...and we ended up coming away with a new pair of earrings that I just love (although not as much as the person who gave them to me). What a great husband!

We then went home and spent the rest of the day just hanging out. We watched a documentary on architecture that Ben recommended, and then took a nap, and then watched a little TV. It was  a really nice day, to just have no plans and be with each other. That night we were pretty stuffed from lunch so we had a very late dinner at the pizza place on the corner, called Mazara's Pizza. We split a sandwich and I got some soup and barely had any...so we had some good leftovers!


Fast forward to Jeff's birthday...

We didn't have much planned for Jeff's birthday. I bought him some clothes, which he opened when we both got home from work.

We then went out to dinner in Little Italy. We didn't really have any particular place in mind, we figured we would just go to the one that smelled the best ;-)

So we ended up at Cafe Zucchero by Bussalacci, which was excellent! We will have to go back there again. Both of us loved what we ordered. We had to park a little ways away from the restaurant, so it was kind of nice to walk around Little Italy a little bit.

Then we got home and had some birthday cake!!

I made Jeff a carrot cake cheese cake with cream cheese frosting. It was really good, but I realized that I much prefer the cream cheese frosting over carrot cake or cheesecake combined :-)  We ended up snacking on that cake over the next week and successfully polished it off!